Tag: Agility

It’s been few years since I started following agile methodology. When I look back it’s interesting and happy journey. Was thinking about the book (User stories applied) which introduced me to Agile world. Back then, I read the book like a story book. Now I re-read the book after two years after practicing Agile. It was a fantastic read! I thought of sharing few fundamental things for being in an agile team.

Team > Individual : When you are part of an Agile team, the focus shifts from individuals to the team . This will be a big change for those who come from waterfall model. Although during the standup meetings people talk about their achievements for the day and the next actions, it’s not the individuals work alone that make sprints successful. Things like, taking up pending tasks, helping team members complete tasks, pair-programming, looking for the overall success of the business etc. are thing which make significant impact than an individual’s ability to write optimal code/test.

Where is the Design : When I came from the waterfall model, I was surprised that there is no definite design phase. But soon I realize that design is happening in iteration over a period of time. While being in a sprint, Design happens when we do sprint planning and tasking, design happens when we do the pair programming, it happens when we do TDD. This way, there is more scope for the developers to think about code and design, than a single monolithic time slot to think through design.

Agility is different from being in an agile team : Having an agile mindset is completely different from being part of an Agile team. Being part of Agile team gives us leverage to do iterative development, do the ceremonies of agile process etc. But when we have not imbibed the principles and the manifesto behind Agile, it’s not Agility.

Communication : Focus and Communication are fundamental to any successful sprint team. When there is no direct communication, thoughts & opinions are not converted to actions. Be it daily standup meetings or technical discussions/pair-programming/or during sprint planning, connected and collaborative people can only create beautiful software.

Practice, practice, practice : There is no testing phase, there is no business verification phase, nor there is any formal review process. How can we sustain quality ? how can we insure reliability ? The answer to these questions come from the software development practices like TDD, BDD, emergent design, CI etc. Agile provides a way to use these practices. Apart from the acceptance criteria for a story, Definition of Done(DOD) governs the acceptance criteria for all stories. When we have DOD covering these practices, it becomes a standard for ensuring quality. There techniques and practices in combination with Agile process can help to deliver continuous business value while ensuring good quality.

There are an indefinite list of advantages for doing iterative development over waterfall and vice-versa. Although Agile, helps to deliver software faster to clients, there can be projects where regular waterfall model might help. We need to be choosy in selecting our process for each and every project that we work on. Provide your inputs and thoughts on this topic in comments.